Predoctoral Fellowship Program in SEL Research

Current Group Members

Roger P. Weissberg
NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning
LAS Distinguished Professor
Professor of Psychology and Education

Cynthia R. Coleman
Director of Operations

Rawan Dissi
Operations Specialist

Celene Domitrovich
Visiting Research Associate Professor of Psychology

M. Ari Frede
Predoctoral Fellow in Social and Emotional Learning

Libia S. Gil
Visiting Research Professor of Psychology

Paul D. Goren
Visiting Research Professor of Psychology

Lara Jakobsons
Visiting Research Professor of Psychology

Amy S. Mart
Predoctoral Fellow in Social and Emotional Learning

Sophia Solar
Visiting Research Specialist

Ari Frede

Ari Frede is a graduate student in UIC's College of Education. He is working on his fellowship as he opens the Orange School, an arts-based, interdisciplinary elementary charter school in Chicago with a primary focus on social and emotional skills. He plans to research how schools like his can sustain their missions amid the shifting priorities and pressures of school districts and other agencies. Ari began his career as a Teach For America corps member in New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta from 1992 to 1994. He later moved to Illinois to take other positions in teaching and school leadership. He earned a master's degree in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi and a bachelor's from Hampshire College with concentrations in education, 20th century American fiction and children's literature.

Amy Mart

Amy Mart is a graduate student in UIC's Department of Psychology. She studies how teachers in high-poverty urban schools can use social and emotional learning to help them teach complex math concepts. She is also actively involved with CASEL's multi-site study with eight large urban districts that are implementing social and emotional learning districtwide. Before joining CASEL and UIC as a fellow, Amy worked as an educational researcher and consultant, and taught third grade in Chicago's Irving Park community as a corps member with Teach For America. She earned a master's degree in human-development counseling from Vanderbilt University and a bachelor's in psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

In partnership with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and NoVo Foundation, this fellowship offers to prepare the next generation of scholars to advance the field of social and emotional learning (SEL). In this capacity, they will work with leading researchers and practitioners to:

Develop, implement, and evaluate innovative school-based programs that promote social and emotional development of all students
Conduct interdisciplinary research on social and emotional factors that enhance preschool through high school students' positive development and school performance
Create SEL student learning standards, assessment tools, and systems
Establish school-family partnerships to promote children's social, emotional, and academic learning
Collaborate with educational leaders and practitioners to support policies and practices that improve urban education in Chicago and nationwide

For more information about social and emotional learning, please check out the webpage of the UIC Social and Emotional Learning Research Group at http://www.uic.edu/labs/selrg/ and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning at www.casel.org.